Transparent or Translucent- Take your pick!

When it comes to facial expressions and feelings...I am absolutely transparent.

But this is something, I am not particularly fond of.

If I dislike somebody, I find it tough to be sweet to them. Yeah, I am sensible and civilized enough to behave well with them. But one can tell easily if I don't like a person. My smile won't reach my eyes. The communication would be there but the distance would be maintained, probably through my non- verbal communication.

People who know me well can tell if I am angry, sad, worried. People who do not know me well enough, also have an idea if something is wrong. There are all kinds of people you get to deal with in life and sometimes, it becomes very hard to pretend or even smile with people you dislike, specially narcissists and manipulative people. There are times when I feel my absolute feelings were not totally written on my face for the whole world to see!

Many times it create problems with friends. No matter how genuine my intentions are, sometimes being open and assertive about my expressions, has given me catastrophic reactions. On the other hand, or on the brighter side, people do treat me genuine and value me for being true.

Though, I wonder, what is it that makes some people so open about what they feel and yet others so good at hiding their emotions? Is it a trait that is inherited? Or can it be cultivated and learnt?

I guess, to each his own. Who am I to judge a person by the way he/ she reacts? There could be more than what meets the eye, after all.

And like what I have always believed, if you are happy, may it stay that way. If you are not, may be it is time to think!

© Written by Garima Mahajan

Things that CAN NOT go wrong

Every once in a while, things go wrong. Like Murphy's law- Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Sometimes, so wrong that no matter what you do, how many efforts you put, it just can not be undone.

You put in your heart and soul in a relationship, thinking it is for keeps and it turns sour. You sweat out your calories in a gym and it just does not work. You worked more than extra for a project and your colleague takes away all the increment. You study all night for the most important examination and go blank the next morning.

It happens all the while, all the places.

And then, there are certain things that can never go wrong. They are pure magic. Enumerating them here:

1. An investment in property/ gold. No matter when you buy a property, it is always a good time to own your piece of land or jewellery. 
2. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's voice. Let's just accept that his voice is magical. He turns any ordinary song awesome. Click here to listen one of his latest magics.
3. An unexpected phone call from a long lost friend. Doesn't it happen with you that you introspect the toughest part of your life and a random call from an old friend just makes you realise there is so much more in life that you are missing?!!?
4. Coming back home. No matter how weary the day is, coming back home is always a bliss.
5. Break from routine every three months. I know, there is scarcity of leave, urgency of work, completion of project, deadline approaching and all that. But, believe me, a small getaway will rejuvenate and recharge all your cells for the mechanical life almost all of us lead!

Now, next time when things go wrong, try to work on these things. And remember, 95% things we do, do go wrong. It is actually the 5 % that makes life livable.

© Written by Garima Mahajan

WHY?

The last word is not yet said
The last touch is yet not felt
The last song is yet song sung
The last bell is yet not rung

The last memory is yet to fade
The last dance is yet to be played
The last desire is yet unfulfilled
The last dream is yet to be lived

Why did you then leave?
Why was our story so brief?
Why did you walk away?
Could you not stay?

© Written by Garima Mahajan

All you need is love. Really?

'All you need is love'-  wrote Charles M. Schulz. 


May be he was right.


Or, may be not.

In these times of rocket high stress levels, zero work- life balance, the need for a caring partner does increase manifold. And just like any system, here also the demand for such loving, caring person is going up rapidly as the supply is diminishing. It is not that our capacity for love and caring has diminished.


Then what is going wrong and where in terms of care?


Trust is a big word and it is harder to find in our times. Emotional upheavals and break ups are as omnipresent as recession. A person with no respect for commitment is socially approved, with a disclaimer of 'No Strings Attached'. An abusive, or a cheating partner is YOURS and ONLY YOURS problem. That's about as much sympathy as you will get, that too, grudgingly. 


After the misadventures of heart, you ever feel like sharing your pain? Well, you will end up multiplying your pain by two!


Charles M. Schulz was right- Love is all you need. It indeed is a universal need but relationships are not for the faint- hearted ones!



© Written by Garima Mahajan

Lesson Learnt (The Hard Way)

Let me start by apologizing for not writing for some time. I was very unwell and was advised a week's bed rest. In fact, I am supposed to be resting even this time, but some love can not be kept in boundation even in sickness. Such is my love for writing!

So many times, we take ourselves and our presence so lightly and let the frivolous issues silently kill us. In this period of sickness, I learnt that the most trivial issues occupy the maximum space in our minds. I allowed non worthy people and issue reside in my mind, thereby neglecting what is most precious to me and my loved ones- my own health. And as expected, when the tough time came, the trivial people made the obvious exit.

I do not blame people for not being around when the need arose, I just am surprised at my own optimism. When you have to choose between your heart and mind, choose wisely. Sometimes, all rationals point towards the mind, but you act otherwise. It is only when you see the scare in the eyes of your loved ones, you realise you probably gave away so much that you have nothing left for yourself now!

I still can not get over the trauma that my loved ones went through, because, unknowingly, I allowed silent, frivolous, trivial, shallow thoughts eat me from inside.

But it's never too late to start again. I start from today.

Thank You to those who were around. You ensured that nothing else mattered.

Thank You to those who were not around. You ensured you don't matter, anyway.


Live wisely. You really have only one life to live.






© Written by Garima Mahajan

A Damage Even God Can't Undo

Your words, so harsh
Did I dream or did you poke in my heart
Trying to keep my faith high
Withering it off with a smile

Feelings so pure, so untainted
Did I hear you right or did you call me fake
Trying to sink in the reality
Brushing off the hurt, lest one see the tear

Alone I stand, alone I face
Did you use words or were they bullets or poison
Trying to know where I went wrong
So horribly wrong that you tore me off the ground.


© Written by Garima Mahajan

Wish you were here

I wish you were here

I could show how you ripped my soul.

Since you never will be, I think of you all the time

And look back to where I have come.

Lost, damaged, exhausted yet surviving

Before I shed that last tear,

Want to remember you for the last time.

I wish you were here.

© Written by Garima Mahajan

Wordless Post Part 9

Somethings in life do not have certain 'keys'.

© Written by Garima Mahajan

Futile Persist

Sometimes you fight back, sometimes you give up. 


This is when you give up.


Some desires never die                                                   
Consciously they lie
They flourish without knowing
Causing irreparable miseries.


I fight and I resist
But such are emotions
There is no holding them
Futile is the persist.


None can help you
Neither meaningful chat
Or soulful talk
Futile is sometimes, the persist.






© Written by Garima Mahajan

Wordless Post Part 8

Simplicity is the removal of the useless and the unnecessary.

© Written by Garima Mahajan

Guest Post by Divas

Friendships come in all stages of life. Many people say the best of friends are made during childhood. I somehow don't agree because I guess, any relationship is not dependent on age or time. But strangely, the best of my friends are actually my childhood friends.

Divas, is one such childhood friend. I asked him to write a guest post for the blog. He kindly obliged after taking a long time. But let me not blame him, he is a busy man, after all!

Friendship beyond and around time frame. 


Many times I have seen elite people writing for TOI. But never knew that I would be writing something for somebody else's blog. So here it goes for Garima, a friend with whom the friendship was never dependent on time frame.


We spent few months in school as friends and after that she left the school and then there was a long gap of not being in touch. During these years we hardly contacted each other, except for two days in an year- our respective birthdays! Still I feel that she is the same girl I have seen in my school days- sweet , innocent , simple and non-complex . Well when I say non-complex I mean, God has sent a default piece among girls on earth because I have always seen girls with all complexities. And yes, she has added a new member in our our group who is more simple and more non-complex: Her
husband RISHI. 


This post is based on the premise that is friendship really dependent upon the time and does distance bring people away and/or close to the each other. Also is it necessary that we should be in touch daily to show that we are good friends. 


Some relations are meant to be continued, despite time and communication gap. There is some force that drives the friendship ahead even though you have not talked for years but when you meet, you feel the positive energy.


I am 28 now, may be life has many more instances ahead for me to experience that will influence my thought process, but till date what I have understood is that in our lifespan we meet many people and among those many people, some become your friends, you lose touch with few of them but you make every effort to know their well-
being and they remain in your thoughts always no matter how many times you meet.


Well when I look back in my life let me start with a fact that there is friend with whom I do not know when we actually become friends. With all these years have passed we
become more matured in our friendship. Of course there has to be a common platform that brings you together and that was our parents friendship. No matter we had common society and that become a catalyst to the relationship. There were differences of our own and there was time when friendship was almost broken but yet again it started and it started with matured thought process. Such things happen when you shedding your ego aside and accept the person with his or her core nature.


Further to this let me share one more unusual friendship of mine. This guy is a family friend, a family friendship that is coming from last 3 generations. We were hardly too young to understand each other and our fathers got transferred to different places. Yet when ever in our school days we need to draft the letters” letter to your best friend “, I used to write his name. Today I think why I wrote his name, when we were not in contact ( though our parents were and that time hardly any home has got the telephone and internet was not possible ) . After many year we again met in Pune and within no time I decided to stay together with him because I wanted to give chance to myself to strengthen the relations as I also believe the unless you work-out on something it will not go further.


Now when I am writing this let me state my friendship from my schooling. Here is a friend, and I should quote that thought process is different but again with time I found that we were in contact till date. He was away from the country for years and yet we were in contact. And I do not have any answer to this as why? Other guy….went to other city and let me tell he was not in contact with me often and today also we were not in touch but again I pray for his well-being from bottom of my heart. 


I have few other friends from school who are in contact not so often but when we meet we are on our own. May be because with time we have accepted all of us with our positives and negatives. May be we have become so predictive to each other that even an unusual behavior does not affect the other.


I have not seen anything so beautiful as a friendship. You can say anything to your friends without any hesitation; you share such important things and make yourself tension free. They are the stress busters.


Sometimes, you find yourself so connected to someone that every thought is a telepathy, you just need not to explain yourself and things become so uncomplicated in your life. You do find someone like this in life. Never let them go.


Whatever examples I have quoted above are indeed my good friends but there are few other I my life who are as important and I want to stay connected to them. May be I should thank to social networking sites , that help to know their well-being. And not to thank service providers to keep the calling rates so low ;)


I think we should not ponder about the reasons behind any friendship with someone, just live the life without hurting someone’s emotions and respect each other's individuality. I believe that even if you are not the part of their happiness, try to be with them in their needs .I pray to God to give me every chance to be with them (or help them ) when my friends are in trouble.

One Moment For Myself!

And there are times when you experience a strange calmness around you. I am going through the same right now.

The calmness allow me to ponder over life's events, their purpose and significance. As I lay on the bed, my eyelashes heavy after a long day, hug each other, the ongoing conversation in my mind goes more intense. It is a random, almost abstract thought.

Suddenly my phone rings. The voice inside my head instruct me not to pick it up. I realise my eyes are open and my thoughts are gone now.  I slowly move my hands to take the call. But just then I stop, almost like a reflex action. I close my eyes again, put up my legs and let the voice in my head take over me.

The phone stopped after a while..or I did not bother if it did not.

It feels good!

© Written by Garima Mahajan